


kind of like a song

by sphesphe



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Boston Bruins, First Dates, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 21:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12920490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphesphe/pseuds/sphesphe
Summary: Brad isn't good at singing; Patrice isn't good at poetry. They refuse to recognize this in each other.





	kind of like a song

**Author's Note:**

> yikes, I started writing this in 2015, inspired by the (excruciating) [NHL15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLwG59D_38E) [commercials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwkZ1DQ5ZNU) featuring these two. I let it drift unfinished because it was so dang fluffy — but lately, fluff is what we need. Besides, Bergy said "I love you" to Marchy _on tape_ , and they're so very in love and it makes me die so very often. So I finished this. Along the way it sort of turned into an ode to creating art and how strangely terrifying it is to show it to people.
> 
> For the moon colony <3 thanks for keeping this fic in the back of my mind.

_Hey good luck at that open mic tonight_  
_knock em dead_  
_And you will, because your voice is a lethal weapon_

Brad snorts at his phone. Seggy transferred, under duress, earlier this year all the way to Texas, but never lets an opportunity for chirping go unchirped. He texts back:  
_Fuck you, thanks bro_ , and adds a string of hearts.

The truth is, he’s fucking nervous. He breathes in, out, a confusion of dread and adrenalin prickling through his body, and clutches the neck of his guitar with sweaty palms. He cannot stop jiggling his leg.

“All right there?” Torey murmurs, kicking lightly at Brad’s ankle under the table.

“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s all fine,” Brad mutters back. He is not thinking about what happened the last time he tried this whole “performing in front of other people” thing.

He gets a while to psych himself up; he’s one of the last performers in the open mic lineup tonight. So far there’s been a couple of singers — one girl with a sweet voice and a ukelele, a couple of boring-ass dudes with guitars doing boring covers — and a spoken word performance. Fun stuff, though Brad’s maybe been too busy with going over the lyrics to his own song over and over to pay full attention.

Brad does notice, however, when the next guy goes up and parks himself in front of the microphone. He’s dark haired, with dark eyes and a nose that looks like maybe it’s been broken before.

“Did you catch this guy’s name? I missed it,” Brad asks Torey, who sends him a knowing glance.

“Patrice something,” Torey says, smirking. “See something you like? Are you gonna seduce him with your sweet, sweet song?”

Brad’s response gets cut off by the guy opening his mouth and starting to talk. “Hi everyone,” he says, and oh, he has a fucking _accent_. Torey’s smirk widens even more. “I’m Patrice. Ah, I’m a business major, so poetry doesn’t exactly come naturally to me. Probably that will be obvious.” His smile is self-deprecating and completely charming. “But anyway, I started writing it, and thought I’d try to share it with all of you.” He fidgets a little with the sheet of paper in his hand, clears his throat, and begins to read.

 

A stunned silence reigns as Patrice finishes and looks up at the crowd. Brad finds his mouth hanging open. He looks around, surprised to find himself back in a dingy campus coffee shop and not on a crisp sheet of ice back home in Nova Scotia.

_Wow._

“Dude, that was about _hockey!_ I guess it could be speed skating or something. But I think hockey. Right? That was sick! He’s really good,” he whispers to Torey before starting to clap furiously. Torey stares at him long enough that Brad kicks him in the ankle meaningfully. “What, is there something on my face? Aren’t you going to clap?” Torey dutifully claps.

But the applause from everyone else in the room is closer to golf clapping than the standing ovation that Brad feels is warranted. Some people aren’t even applauding at all.

This crowd wouldn’t know talent if it kicked them in the teeth. Brad shoots death stares around with reckless abandon, which has no effect whatsoever.

Patrice, though, is a man of pure class — he just ducks his head and departs the stage with poise and grace, making his way to the far side of the room, where he sits tragically out of Brad’s view.

“Can you believe that?” he says to Torey, fired up by equal parts admiration and indignation. “What’s wrong with these people? He said poetry didn’t come naturally to him but that was _great!_ ”

“Uh, Brad... do you really...” Torey says, trailing off.

“What? Do I what?”

Torey shuts his mouth and shakes his head. “Never mind.”

Brad spends the next few performances ignoring the people on stage and instead reliving that poem in his head, trying to remember every word and savoring the memories it had conjured. That feeling of being on the ice, the spray of snow. Somehow he hadn’t realized how much he misses it.

And then all of a sudden the MC is calling Brad’s name, and where the fuck did all that time go — he barely manages to remember that oh yeah, he still has to sing tonight. He gets on stage with his guitar in front of him like a shield. The lights are a lot brighter up here than he remembered.

“Uh, hey. I’m Brad and I’m gonna sing this song. That I wrote. I mean, it’s just this stupid short little piece but, you know, I still worked hard on it and well, it can’t get any worse than last time. So here we go.” Blank faces look back in silence.

Brad shuts up and tries to calm his jagged pulse.

The moment before he puts fingers to strings is like that moment right between flinging yourself off a cliff and actually falling: suspended, weightless, groundless— and doomed, which becomes apparent the moment Brad starts to sing.

The first note is sharp. Really, really sharp. He tries to correct, veering.... flat. Really, really flat.

 _Fuck._ But he can’t stop now, so he just keeps on going, reaching, clinging to the lyrics — at least he remembers those — and hoping the tune comes back to him at some point.

It’s a long as _shit_ three and a half minutes up there, sweating unbearably in the spotlight. He’s wandering around the scale like an aggressively drunken yeti, he knows it, but... he’s run out of fucks to give. He promised himself he’d get all the way through, and he fucking will.

In fact, tossing embarrassment under the wheels of a bus made entirely out of anger, he starts to sing _louder._

Then, like _ten seconds_ before he wraps up, some drunk asshole in the back of the room shouts, “You suck!”

Brad resolves to be the bigger man, figuratively at least, by ignoring him. Then the heckler thoughtfully adds, “... a lot!”

Brad’s fingers pause on the strings, mid-chord. He has one second to rein it in, to be a normal fucking human being and take it with good grace and just get off the stage without letting it get to him or turning it into a big Thing.

Then that moment is well gone. “Jesus fuck, you think I don’t know that?” he says, right into the microphone. “Trust me, I know that sucked. My ears work just as good as yours. Believe me, that is not how I wanted this to go, all right? But I’ve been practicing for months and I wanted to just fucking finish the song, all right? Maybe it was awful, yeah, but I wanted to get better, and like, fucking _try_ , instead of sitting in the back and heckling like a raging dickbag. Such as yourself, if that wasn’t clear. So you, buddy, can go fuck the hell off.”

He stands up, throws the crowd the finger for good measure, and sweeps off the stage; doesn’t stop till he’s out the door.

 

#

 

He left his coat inside, but fury is doing a fantastic job of warming him up. Brad takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Stares up at the moon, wondering to himself once again how he manages to make his way around campus seeming like a rational human rather than the hopeless dumbass he actually is.

Torey emerges a minute later, his expression neutral, holding first Brad’s coat and then his guitar case out. Brad dons the former and puts the guitar in the latter, snapping the latches shut with too much force.

“What a disaster movie,” he says. “Should have seen that coming from a long way off.”

“To be fair, that guy was definitely a raging dickbag,” Torey says.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still. I’m like the shitty bureaucrat in the movie who ignores the genius scientist’s warning that the local volcano’s gonna erupt right into a freak tornado and turn into an unprecedented lava-nado. The movie’s called Lavanado.” Brad pauses. “In this scenario, the volcano is my voice.”

Torey laughs, which was the intention. But when he’s done, he’s back to looking at Brad with the faintest edge of pity. Not a fun look to be on the receiving end of, especially when it’s followed by a sigh. “Look, Marchy, you’re great at a lot of things. Like... being funny, and working really hard, and coming up with innovative new ways to call me short. Which is ironic considering I’m taller than you, but you _are_ very creative and clever at being wrong about that.”

“Yeah, whatever, Kruger. I’ve seen how you don’t put anything you actually use on the highest shelf in our room. Because you can’t reach it. Because you’re shorter,” Brad retorts, automatically.

“Proving my point here.”

“Shut it. Look, I get it. Play to my strengths, forget this whole thing. I just...” Brad fidgets, blows out a long breath. “I liked it. Composing. Practicing. It was a different part of my brain, you know? It was _fun_. But it’s obvious that it’s really not... worth it.”

The door opens behind them, letting out the sound of someone singing in a heartbreakingly beautiful tenor, as on-key as if it were precision targeted. It sounds like a sign.

Someone clears his throat and says, “Um, hello. Excuse me.”

Brad turns, and shit, it’s the poetry guy with the eyebrows. “Yeah?” he says, and it comes out more belligerently than he wanted. He tries not to wince.

“Uh, you’re Brad, right? Hey, I’m glad you’re still here. I wanted to just say...” The guy seems momentarily embarrassed, but then looks Brad right in the eye. “I liked it. The song, I liked it.”

Brad stares at him incredulously. Torey as well, because Torey has ears and isn’t insane.

“The guitar part, you did very well!” Patrice protests, in the face of their disbelief. “I could hear what you meant it to be, and I liked that. And the lyrics, there were some great verses, I thought. I like listening to the words in songs, it’s like poetry, right?” His smile goes a bit wistful. “I think you write better than me.”

“No fucking way, dude,” Brad says firmly, to clear up _that_ absurdity. “Holy shit, that poem sent me into, like, another _world_. It, like, bent time and space for me. It was so great.”

The guy — Patrice something — laughs. “That is not what people usually say.”

“You’re joking, right?” Brad demands. “It was _vivid_ , man! I felt like I was back in Nova Scotia, playing pond hockey. Which I haven’t done since I was like, eight, but your poem made me realize I really miss it. Gave me chills, dude.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s... well. Thank you.” Patrice looks bemused, but pleased.

Torey interrupts with, “Look, Marchy, I’m gonna head back to the dorms, I’ve got some studying to do. I’ll see you later. Maybe.” He gives Brad the meaningful eyebrows and Brad manfully resists the urge to put him in a headlock and noogie the shit out of him.

“That’s my roommate Torey,” Brad says, as Torey takes his leave. “He’s cool, but I’m definitely taller than him, and don’t let him tell you different. I’m Brad, but you already knew that.”

Patrice introduces himself, and they belatedly go through the ritual of the hand-shake.

For a moment, there’s a silence that threatens to turn awkward, and Brad is half a millisecond away from blurting something just to fill the space, something sure to make Patrice realize that Brad is not a together kind of person and run far away. Luckily, Patrice speaks first. “Actually, I also really liked what you said to that heckler.”

Brad is startled into a laugh. “Are you serious?”

“I’m very serious!” Patrice protests. “My first time reading something I wrote in public, it was in a class. I almost threw up in front of everyone. It was really close. It’s so awful.”

“I tried performing in public once, last year, and I got like, one-third of the way through the song, and then I had an actual panic attack and had to leave the stage,” Brad admits. “So, you know. I had a lot of fucked up emotions around coming back and trying again tonight.”

“It’s the worst feeling. It takes so much courage to create, and try, and keep trying. Everyone should have room to stumble and get back up and try again. I admire you for doing it, honestly.” Patrice’s voice is so earnest, and Brad blinks at him. It’s dawning on him that this may be an unrealistically nice guy.

“Well, thanks. But you know, I’m thinking sometimes maybe you stumble really hard and fall on your face and break your nose, which in my case is a big deal, and decide it all hurts too much to, like. Keep stumbling around forever.”

“Oh,” Patrice says. “It’s tough, I know. I get it.” A glum pause follows. Brad dreams about reversing time, taking it all back. Then Patrice asks, “Do you live on campus?”

“Yeah. The Murray building.”

“Oh, I’m going in that direction too. Shall we?”

“Sure,” Brad agrees, bemused. He follows Patrice down the sidewalk. The winter air feels good on his face, turning his breath visible. “So, you must play hockey, right?” he says.

“I used to. It was my favorite thing in the world.” Patrice goes quiet as they walk. Brad senses more, manages to hold the silence for once, waiting. “I was good — well, good enough anyway, would have kept going as far as I could take it. But I got a couple concussions. Could have waited it out, but honestly, it spooked me.”

“Well, shit,” Brad says, with feeling. “Me, I just stopped ‘cause everyone said I was too small and my parents got worried that I kept getting into fights. I didn’t want to stop but they were afraid somebody would literally kill me. I was that annoying.” Brad snorts. “So here I am, studying sports management instead.”

“That’s more interesting than studying business like me.”

“Yeah, that is really boring,” Brad teases, and to his great relief Patrice grins back.

Their eyes meet for a brief moment, warming, and Brad wishes the walk to his dorm building was a hell of a lot longer. There are other students around in the distance, but the orange street lamps against the clear purple night and the crisp quiet make it dreamlike, like they’re the only people who exist right now. They could walk together like this on and on for miles. They’ve slowed to a crawl, drifting.

“I took a creative writing class because taking only business and management courses was so boring. And that got me started down this path and now... well. I like it even though I’m no good. And I’m glad I did. I guess I’m glad that I’m boring,” Patrice says with a laugh.

“I bet you’re secretly a total wild man. Late nights with hookers and blow. An absolute animal.”

“Well, sometimes I do let my kitchen get really messy,” Patrice confesses, and Brad laughs for about five whole minutes.

Once that finally settles down, he asks, “What position were you?”

“Centre.”

“I was left wing. Hey, maybe we could have played on a line together. In the Q or something. I’d agitate and you’d be my enforcer, big guy like you.” Looks Patrice up and down, grins. He’s joking, but it feels like it could have been true, somewhere, somewhen. He adds, “And hell, we’d score too, of course.”

He’s afraid momentarily that bringing up hockey like this will upset Patrice, talking about things they wanted once, now left behind and made more or less impossible. But Patrice is laughing, thank god, his face warm and open, taking it all in stride. “Art Ross material, we’d be. I’d let you have it. I’d take the Conn Smythe,” he says generously.

“Oh, thanks. Nice. You’re a saint,” Brad says, feeling so light he could float away. He has no idea if this is actual flirting or Patrice being nice, because Patrice _is_ nice. But it feels good anyway.

They talk NHL a bit, banter about the Bruins and the Leafs and the Habs. Yet in the end, no matter how slow the drift, reality strikes: they reach Brad’s building, geography gone cruelly finite. “This is me,” he says.

“I live off-campus. Ten minutes that way,” Patrice tells him, pointing.

Brad is this close to saying, _Come up, have a drink, coffee, whatever,_ which is about as subtle as going _Let’s make out._ But... Torey’s probably in their room studying, and it might make this easy thing complicated, and in that split second his imagination shrieks so many awkward possible nightmare scenarios that Brad straight up chickens out.

Instead he says, “We should give it a shot.”

“What’s that?” Patrice says, his impressive brows lifting.

“Hockey. Well, you know, skating anyway. I haven’t skated in way too long.”

Patrice just looks at him, head cocked slightly to one side, the corner of his mouth quirking. “Okay. Yeah. You know what? That would be great.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Skating would be amazing. You want to? I don’t think I know anyone else around here who would go with me.”

“Yeah, shit, definitely. Cool. Man, I don’t even have skates here. Well, I can buy some. Hope I haven’t forgotten all my moves. Here, give me your phone, I’ll figure something out.” He waggles his eyebrows, puts his number into Patrice’s phone. He finds his smile stretching to ridiculous proportions, all poorly hidden excitement. It’s super uncool. Whatever. “Hey, you know, maybe it’ll be so great I’ll be inspired to write a song about it.”

“You should! I’d love to hear it. That would be great,” Patrice says warmly, as if he’d genuinely enjoy that, and Brad really has to go inside before he says something regrettable like _I think you’re great._

 

#

 

They go skating on a random Wednesday. Brad knows the guy who coordinates the rink schedule, and uses his best wheedling and bribery skills to extract one hour of ice time out of him.

Brad borrows a couple of sticks from a guy on the hockey team who owes him a favor; Brad helped mastermind an intricate plot resulting in Tommy’s roommate’s entire wardrobe dyed maroon and Tommy declared winner of a long-running prank war. Tommy owes him _big_.

One of Brad’s true talents, unlike music, is definitely talking people into things. If only he could use it in a constructive way, he’d be fucking famous.

“This brings me back,” Patrice says, gaze sweeping across the white expanse of the ice before them. “How’d you get all this stuff?”

“I know people,” Brad says, as casually as possible. Patrice smiles at him, eyes crinkling, and they step onto the ice and despite how long as it’s been, it feels unexpectedly right. Familiar and welcoming.

Brad’s borrowed stick is too long, but he stickhandles the puck back and forth a little, letting it come back to him. Then he takes a deep breath and lets it out, and takes off: legs pumping, he builds up speed, a forgotten exhilaration, carrying the puck on his stick till he gets past the hash marks and lets off a wrister right into where the net would be, if there was a net set up. He whoops, the sound echoing through the rink, and he looks back at Patrice. He remembers that he’d been _good_.

Patrice skates up at a more leisurely pace with his own puck. Brad expects him to shoot, but instead he nods at Brad, says, “Heads up!” and passes it. The puck connects easily, nice and clean, and Brad fires it straight and true.

Brad raises his arms, skates back towards Patrice, and Patrice plays along, coming in close, letting Brad fistbump him, cellying as enthusiastically as if they’d just made a game winning goal. “Sick pass, baby,” Brad tells him. “Poetry in motion!”

Patrice nods gravely, the corners of his mouth tugging upward. “You know it,” he says, and goes to retrieve the puck.

They play some keepaway, some old drills, and just... play, in a way that makes Brad wish that he’d listened to his parents even less than he had as a kid and had kept going with hockey. He’s so out of practice now that he probably wouldn’t be any good on the college intramural teams. Maybe a rec league. There’s a lot of shit he regrets.

Eventually, they’re both out of breath, and time is running down. Brad cools down by skating slow, wide laps around the rink, sinking into the feeling. Patrice joins him, skating by his side for a few more laps as the hour runs out.

“That was fun,” Patrice says, once they’ve cleaned up and are unlacing their skates. “Really fun. I needed that.” He smiles, and lets out a long sigh. “It’s been a long time.”

“Me too. Let’s do it again sometime. Seriously.”

“I’m up for it. My classes are, well, more than a little crazy this semester, but it would be great. I want to.”

Brad bites his lip. He decides that if he’s going to embrace his more realistic inner talents, he should at least be able to talk Patrice into going out with him. Or at least hanging out more. He’s willing to take this one step at a time. “You want to go grab a drink somewhere? A friend of mine works at the White Horse and gives me free beer sometimes. And the Bruins are playing tonight. We could watch the game.”

Patrice’s brows draw together and Brad’s stomach tumbles over itself. “I really wish I could. But one of the guys I’m tutoring has a big test tomorrow that he really needs to do well on. He asked me for a last minute session and, well. He needs it, so I said yes. I’m not sure how long it’ll take. He definitely needs to go over the material a few more times at least. Maybe a lot more.” He winces, frowns thoughtfully. “I could text you afterwards if the game’s still going.”

“Sure, yeah. I’ll be around. Or next time, whatever. I know you’re busy.” Brad manages to sound cool and not heartbroken. He’s pretty sure.

“Thanks for this,” Patrice tells him. “I don’t know how you made it happen, but I loved it. Next time I’ll have to come up with something. I might have a few tricks up my sleeve.” And he winks.

Brad’s going to take the feelings of awe that sight awakes in him to his grave.

Still, his mouth works even if his brain has stopped. “Setting expectations high. I’m ready for it, big guy. Any time. Just text me, I’m there.”

“I will.” Patrice grins, and goes in for a hug. Brad’s too stunned to perform his best hug back, but he does what he can in the moment. Patrice waves as he walks away, and Brad watches him go for much too long for it not to be weird.

He doesn’t regret _that_ , even a little bit.

 

#

 

Brad’s been told he’s a lot, by various friends and exes alike. He manages to hold off on texting Patrice for a while, till his willpower breaks and he sends _nice goal from the Bs, not good as our combo earlier today though_.

No response. He’s watching the game with Quaider and Torey, who are fortunately too caught up in discussing the D pairings and various trade rumors to notice how often Brad’s checking his phone. After maybe an hour, he finally gets back _!_  
_Wish I’d gotten to see it. Still tutoring!_

 _yikes_ , Brad types, making a face. He adds the scared-screaming emoji for good measure. It’s been _hours_.

 _We’re going to get there in the end! I’m very persistent_  
_We’ll have to hang out another time. Sorry_

 _nbd man_  
_i’ll see you when i see you_ , Brad sends back, smothering disappointment, and turns his attention back to the TV. Sometimes shit just doesn’t work out, he tells himself. It’s way too early to give up.

 

He makes a few more attempts over the next couple weeks. Patrice keeps being really fucking _busy_ — caught up in responsibilities to the apparently many student groups he takes part in, his work-study hours, tutoring sessions, and actually studying for himself. He does so much _stuff._ If Brad did half as much shit around campus he’d probably be dead.

Patrice’s apologies read as sincere, but Brad does wonder if he should start taking the hint.

All of New England has been plunged into a two week long cold snap, snowless so far but brutal nonetheless. Brad’s nearly sprinting to the caf to avoid the northerly winds howling across campus when a text from Patrice stops him in his tracks. _Hey, are you free this Saturday morning?_  
_I know my schedule has been crazy. But I finally have some time. I have a plan!_

Brad’s struck through, frozen with a paroxysm of fondness at that stray exclamation mark. He’s also hatless and gloveless and might literally freeze. He dashes out the fastest reply possible to keep his bare fingers out of the frigid air. _Yeah Im free. ???_

 _Saturday at 9 am, meet you outside your dorm_  
_Bring your skates and a stick! Dress warm!_

Brad boggles, then laughs ruefully. Saturday mornings before roughly noon are generally untrodden territory for him at this point in his life, but in no place or time would he refuse a Patrice armed with as many earnest exclamation points as this.  
_i like the secrecy_  
_don’t like the early morning, which 9 DOES count as_  
_but i’ll be there_

 _Haha. Great!_ Followed by a thumbs up emoji.

It takes ten minutes for Brad’s hands to thaw out, but it hardly matters. He’s warm on the _inside_.

“You look smug,” Torey remarks, when Brad makes it back to their room. He examines Brad with a long, measured squint. “Did you prank someone? Did you prank _me_?”

“I have no idea if this thing I’m going on is actually a date, but it kind of really sounds like a date, and the whole thing came across as a little flirty. I’m very okay with this,” Brad announces. “Although I’m going to have to find my gloves. I think they might be at the bottom of several piles of clothes.”

Torey’s squint attains ever higher levels of skepticism. “Just clothes?”

“Maybe some other assorted shit too. Stray plates and forks? Lost notes? It’s going to be an expedition. But the destination is going to be absolutely worth it.”

“Wow. I’m happy for you, bud. Bring back those forks, I’ve been wondering where they all went. Where’s the big event going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but I assume it’s outdoors, and hockey will be involved. So that’s all great. In fact, I’m feeling kind of fucking inspired right now,” Brad says. His heart is a whole mess of song, jangling around and begging to be heard. He grabs his guitar and heads to his room, ready to jam in the privacy of his own space.

“Well shit,” Torey says to himself, and starts gathering his stuff to make the trek to the library.

 

#

 

Brad sets multiple alarms to drag himself up by 8:30. He’s honestly impressed with himself to have hunted up and assembled all his cold weather layers, scrambled and eaten some eggs, and gotten downstairs with everything in tow by 9:06 am.

Patrice is already there, serene in a black parka and toque, ready with two coffees from the Starbucks down the street. The one he hands to Brad turns out to be sweet and pale, exactly how Brad likes it. “How’d you know?” he demands.

“You seem like a sugar and cream kind of guy,” Patrice says, eyes crinkling.

Brad concedes, “I _am_ made up of sweetness and light,” and when Patrice laughs it’s like the sun rises at that very moment and turns the entire dreary gray sky into gold.

“C’mon, sweetness and light, my car’s parked that way. It’s a little bit of a drive.” Patrice refuses to say where exactly they’re going, but they get on the highway heading south. He puts his phone playlist on shuffle and Brad quickly discovers that Patrice is a _big_ Eminem fan, which he can’t help but find endearing.

“Jeez man, what year is it?” he teases. “Oh my god, is it— is it time for mom’s spaghetti?”

“I like it!” Patrice protests. “Listen, okay, my taste in music is great and not at all behind the times. Hey, I liked your music, didn’t I?”

“That is not proving what you want it to prove.”

“If I like it, then to me it’s good, right?” Patrice glances over, meets Brad’s eyes with an expression so sincere it almost hurts to see. “I don’t know, I honestly think you’ve got talent and love for what you’re doing. I hope you keep doing something with it.”

Brad has to look away, watches the bare trees lining the highway. The sky’s gone overcast again. He should have checked the forecast, but he kind of didn’t want to know; having to cancel because of weather would have been unbearable. “I started fucking around with the guitar again the other day,” he offers. “It’s kind of your fault. I think you’re the only person outside of my mom to say anything nice about my singing.”

“That’s awesome. I’m happy if I did anything to inspire you. I hope you’ll let me hear you play again sometime.”

“It’s your funeral,” Brad scoffs, “and your ears will be the mourners.” Still, for a second he has to fight back a tide of overwhelming — he’s not quite sure what it is. Nostalgia, perhaps, for a time when he didn’t totally know he was bad, when he simply enjoyed picking out a tune and lifting his voice. He’s had regrets in his life, and maybe Patrice is right. Maybe this shouldn’t be one of them.

Before very long, they’re pulling off the highway, past the gas stations and Dunkin Donuts to ever smaller local roads, till finally Patrice turns onto a tiny lot with a sign for the local conservation area.

“It’s not far to walk,” Patrice says, as they carry out their skates.

There’s a pond, of course. The perfect size, not too big, not too deep, but clean and smooth with ice and ringed around with the bare stalks of oaks and maples. There’s no one else to be seen, and barely any sound beyond the occasional whisper of cars in the distance and the light ruffle of wind.

“How’d you find this place?” It’s not the Blue Hills, or any area that Brad had even vaguely heard of before.

“Oh, I looked up a bunch of different ponds, just in case, and I scoped this one out a little while ago. I liked the look of it. Came by last night and checked the ice, made sure it was solid.”

Brad stares. It’s possible that everything is laid out on his face for Patrice to examine at his leisure. He’s not sure what he can actually do about it. Not a whole lot, he suspects.

“What?” Patrice asks, smiling as if Brad isn’t a total fucking goner. “C’mon, let’s get out there.”

Brad feels like a kid again, skating up and down the pristine natural surface. They skate a slow circuit of the pond, testing out the solidity of the ice, then upon reaching the start he catches Patrice’s eye and grins. “Race you to the other end?”

“Oh, shit,” Patrice laughs. “You’re on.”

Brad wins that one; although his lungs briefly scream at him afterwards, it’s worth it for the admiring though rueful grin Patrice aims in his direction. “Not bad, eh?” he says, once he’s caught his breath.

“Not bad at all.”

“Yeah. Still got it,” Brad says, inordinately pleased with himself. “This whole scene really reminds me of that line from that poem you read, you know, at the open mic. What was it, like, _the ice scored with our dreams, forever frozen_ , something like that?”

“Oh my god,” Patrice says, sounding mortified. His whole face has gone red to match his nose, pinked by the cold air. “Don’t. It sounds so much worse out loud like that.”

“No way! I loved that line. The whole thing was so good. Honestly. I still think about it sometimes.” Brad watches in fascination as Patrice goes even redder.

“Thank you. Do you want to get the sticks now? Can we just. Hockey?”

Brad cackles in delight, but he goes and gets the sticks and a bunch of pucks. He’s fine with letting Patrice off the hook. For now.

 

“Why are you this good at faceoffs?” Brad demands, as the puck gets whacked away from him for what feels like the hundredth time.

“It’s like riding a bicycle. Muscle memory.”

“You must have practiced the _shit_ out of faceoffs when you were a kid.”

“Yeah. I did.” Patrice’s smile goes wistful. “I liked them. It was something I could control entirely on my own.”

“Well, shit. You could let me win one every once in a while,” Brad pretends to whine.

That wipes the remnants of memory off Patrice’s face and replaces it with smug triumph. “Eh. We’ll see,” Patrice promises, and proceeds to win the next five, till at last Brad begs for mercy and they move onto simply passing the puck back and forth as they mark the face of the pond with swooping lines.

It feels so fucking natural. It feels easy and right, and Patrice came _yesterday_ just to make sure the pond was good; he planned all this so it would go well, and if this is not a date then Brad is going to lose all faith in himself and in humanity. And—

“— Is that snow?” Brad asks, staring up, going almost crosseyed trying to make out the tiny specks of white against the gray sky.

“The forecast said it might start around now.”

“I was not awake enough to check a forecast this morning. Holy shit. It’s a little too perfect. Are you actually magic? You planned this somehow.”

Patrice ducks his head. “I wanted it to be nice. You did a nice thing for me last time. It meant a lot to me.”

Snow swirls down in barely visible flakes. It seems like the world has hushed entirely, preparing to become blanketed. Patrice stands there in his skates and scarf, looking down like he’s embarrassed, and Brad’s heart might be beating its way out of his chest.

Fuck consequences; he’s got to _know_. “Hey, uh. I just want to ask. ‘Cause it was never explicitly stated, you know, whether or not... What I mean is, is— is this a date?”

Patrice looks at him wide-eyed. Suddenly terrified of the answer, Brad opens his mouth and bulls ahead. “Or is this just you being a super extra nice person? Which you obviously are. But like. Is this stuff you do for everyone, and I should not read extra intentions into it, which is fine and admirable, but uh. I think I might really, really like you. So actually that wouldn’t be fine at all, kind of.”

“No,” Patrice says, and suddenly he’s skated closer— close enough to touch. “I don’t do this for everyone.” He’s gone pink again. “I‐ you’re amazing, did you know that?”

“C’mon,” Brad protests, distracted by the length of Patrice’s eyelashes, and the soft incline of his mouth. Snowflakes are starting to show up on his toque.

“You’re so honest,” Patrice says. He bends down and carefully places his stick down on the ice, fusses with his scarf, then straightens and finally looks Brad in the eye. “I think... I might really like you too.”

“Oh. Well, okay,” Brad manages. “Cool. I can work with that.” He doesn’t exactly fling his stick away, but it’s not nearly as measured when he drops his. “God, this is romantic. You really do have the soul of a poet. See? It suits you."

“Oh, no, I don’t think—” Patrice begins to protest, and it’s going to break Brad’s heart one day, how Patrice doesn’t recognize that the care with which he treats everything is its own kind of poetry.

“I do. Hey. You know what? Close your eyes for a sec. Just listen.” Brad rests one gloved hand lightly on Patrice’s shoulder, watches Patrice’s eyes drift shut in concentration. Together they listen to the snow fall: it’s soundless, but not _quite_ , some imperceptible vibration making itself known. Maybe it’s just the ringing of his own ears.

Brad sinks deep into the moment. His nose is an icicle and his chest is completely full of butterflies. “This probably sounds crazy, but. It sounds kind of like a song. Can you hear it?”

“I don’t know. I just hear you,” Patrice says, opening his eyes. He smiles. “Maybe if you sing it to me.”

“Oh, I’ll show you singing,” Brad says, all aglow, and steps in closer, hearing ever more surely the perfect hum of the universe.

 

#

 

There’s a letter in Brad’s mailbox. An actual handwritten letter.

He _knows_ Patrice has a phone. _And_ a university email address.

Not that Brad can deny the unique special rush that comes from tearing open the envelope and extracting the sheet of paper inside. This may be the first handwritten thing he’s ever received in the mail that wasn’t from his grandparents.

The handwriting is endearingly scrawly, rather than the perfect script Brad had subconsciously expected. Furthermore, it’s a poem.

“KRUGER!” Brad hollers, bursting into their room in a state of absolute mental disarray.

“What?” Torey asks, jerking upright on his bed. “What?”

“Read this,” Brad demands, thrusting the sheet of paper at him.

Torey reads the poem. His face scrunches up like he does when he’s reading a particularly dense textbook. Brad can understand that. This is a _deep_ poem.

“Isn’t it fucking amazing?” Brad wants to go out onto the quad and make random passersby read this poem. He wants to submit it to every poetry journal still clinging to existence in the entire world. “What the fuck is going on with my life? Is he real?”

Torey says, “It’s... really, _really_ ridiculously sweet that he wrote you a poem.”

Brad snatches the paper back. Carefully. He might frame it. “I hope you’re prepared to get kicked out for, oh. A few hours at least. Maybe several days. I don’t know.”

“You can’t make it for one hour, let alone days. Fucking fuck. It’s so cold out. You owe me so much.”

“Feel free to stick around if you _really_ want.”

Torey aims a middle finger in Brad’s direction, pretends to grumble the entire time as he starts the hunt for clean socks. Brad’s been supplying him with the fancy-ass chocolate-dipped biscuits that Torey refuses to admit he loves by way of apology for the not-infrequent sexiling. Torey’s continued to give him endless shit for the whole thing, but in a cool way. He’s good people.

Meanwhile, Brad fires off a string of all-caps texts that might possibly — if he stops to really think about it — betray a certain lack of chill.

Luckily, Patrice wouldn’t recognize chill if it smacked him in the face. He’s the poster child for earnest sincerity, and it’s _catching._

A knock announces the arrival of the man himself. “Hey,” Patrice says, just slightly out of breath. He’s got some scruff going, his hat hair’s impressive, and fuck, he looks good. “Oh, are you going out?”

This to Torey, fully assembled and waggling his eyebrows in Patrice’s direction on his way out the door. “Don’t spend _too_ long reciting sonnets, yeah? See you guys later.”

Then it’s just the two of them. Patrice’s cheeks are pink, maybe not entirely from the weather. He starts to fiddle with the buttons of his coat, only he hasn’t taken his gloves off, and no button appears to be willing to be parted from its buttonhole.

“Need some help?” Brad steps into Patrice’s space, focuses closer than entirely necessary on the buttons. “Hey, uh. I might have yelled this at you in text form already, but seriously. Thank you for the poem. It’s really fucking amazing.”

“Yeah?” When he glances up at Patrice’s eyes, he’s met with a trace of embarrassment, which he expected, but also relief. As if Patrice wasn’t sure if he’d be pleased or not. As if it’d be possible for someone to receive something as precious as the lines Patrice had arranged with his own hands and not love it.

“Yeah.” Brad shoves the coat off Patrice’s shoulders, slides his gloves off one by one, dumps everything over the back of the futon. “Yeah. It was something special, for sure. I kind of don’t know what to say, which is new for me. Just— I love it. I really love it.”

Patrice’s smile starts hesitant, blooms into something still edged with incredulity but starting to be convinced. He goes willingly when Brad pulls him down into a kiss, long and hot and intent to chase any lingering doubt away. When he slides a glove-warm hand under Brad’s shirt up along his spine, there’s no hint of hesitation.

No sonnets are spoken aloud, although Brad privately believes that the sounds Patrice make when he’s two minutes from coming do qualify.

They’re lounging on Brad’s bed, the idea to recover for an attempt at a second round; in the meantime, Patrice reads aloud his favorite poems he’s bookmarked on Poetry.com.

It takes a while, but finally Brad manages to work up to voicing what he’s been wanting to say for— who knows how long. It’s never easy, but here he is, naked, with a head full of Seamus Heaney verse recited in a Quebecois accent worn down by the tones of New England, and starting to fall in love. In some ways, it is pretty easy — just here, right now.

“Hey, uh. Would you... wanna hear what I’ve been working on? Musically, I mean. I’ve been kinda fucking around with some stuff. It’s definitely still a work in progress, obviously, so maybe don’t expect genius or whatever, but—”

“Please.” Patrice sits up straighter, focuses in on Brad like a supportive laser. His attention is a reward in itself. “Yes. I want to hear anything you’re doing.”

Brad takes a deep breath. He gets up and pulls on underwear and a shirt — the barest amount of armor — and grabs the guitar. He sits on the edge of the bed, spends a minute arranging everything to his liking, as he pulls together the courage to try and suck and keep trying.

He’s got this. “Okay. Here I go. You ready?”

Patrice looks at him, and the arrangement of his face speaks whole verses. “Yeah. I’m listening.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I struggled mightily over trying to come up with a Bad Poem that Patrice would have written. In my notes it was simply:  
> [THE POEM  
> IT'S SO TERRIBLE  
> IT RHYMES PROBABLY]  
> So I decided to just leave it to your imaginations. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
